St. Vincent's workers must give back some days off

Published 8:09 pm, Sunday, July 7, 2013

Within a month after laying off nearly 50 people, St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport has announced more belt-tightening, including the reduction of paid time off for all employees.

In a letter dated June 28, hospital President Stuart Marcus informed employees of two new cost-reduction measures it was implementing. The first requires all workers to "donate" back 16 hours of paid time off in fiscal year 2014, which began this week for the hospital. Also, there would be no merit raises this fiscal year.

Marcus wrote that "these two solutions were developed early on with the intent of minimizing the impact of job loss during the workforce reduction." He added that the measures would help the hospital preserve up to 60 jobs that might otherwise have been cut.

In early June, the hospital announced it was cutting 100 jobs, about half of which were filled and resulted in layoffs. At the time, some of the displaced workers were offered other positions within the company and it was unclear how many people would be left unemployed by the cuts.

As of Wednesday, there was still no final number as some employees were still "making decisions about alternative positions," said Dianne Auger, senior vice president of St. Vincent's Health Services, of which the hospital is a part.

Hospital officials have said the layoffs and other cutbacks are in response to several pending financial pressures, including the expected loss of state and federal funding. Under the state budget passed last month, hospitals in Connecticut stand to lose $550 million in anticipated funding over two years. St. Vincent's loss is expected to be nearly $30 million. The hospital also expects to lose roughly $5 million this fiscal year because of the federal sequestration.

Auger echoed Marcus's position that the suspension of merit raises and the reduction in paid time off was done to preserve jobs. "We knew from discussions with our employees about the budget that they were in support of us using every option we could to mitigate the amount of job losses that needed to take place, resulting in our decision to implement multiple initiatives to reduce our costs across the organization," Auger wrote in an email.

But at least one employee, who wished to remain anonymous, was troubled by the new reductions. "What about the countless hours I work to earn my PTO?" the staffer said in an email. "What is next?"